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Destiny 2 Gameplay Reveal, Complete Breakdown

Destiny 2 Gameplay Reveal

Complete Breakdown

Welcome back Guardians… can I still call you Guardians… anyway today I wanted summarise the Gameplay reveal, I have just finished watching it and wanted to share all of the main points that I could spot. There is a ton more to cover, however that will take some more time to go through the reveal multiple times with a fine-tooth comb. Without saying, this video will contain spoilers for destiny 2, if you don’t want to know anything about Destiny 2 click away now. After the intro I will leave a contents page so you can skip to any section you want to know information about, I will also put the time stamps in the description.

This is myelin games and I hope you enjoy this Destiny 2 coverage.

So in this video I will cover, Ghaul’s motivation for attacking the City, The Light being taken away from Guardians and the Cabal’s device on the Traveler, the 3 types of weapons (kinetic, energy and power weapons) plus weapon modifications, the three new supers (the dawnblade, sentinel and Arcstrider 23:01), a third class ability (i.e. not just grenade and melee but what looks to be a support ability), what enemies are included in D2 apart from the Cabal, Crucible the new modes and player limit, the new planets, activities on each planet and traveling to each planet, integrated clans, guided games which is a matchmaking feature for end game content, the Beta, Sony and Blizzard Entertainment. Raids of course are returning however no information has been given yet. Screen shots have emerged of SIVA missions, the UI also shows an artefact slot, however it may in fact be a clan banner slot, if rumors are correct.

“Ghaul is hear for a simply reason, he has been raised since he was a little turle, just a little guy, to believe, that he and the red legion should have been chosen to receive the traveler’s power, Ghaul believes in a better class of Guardian, he is here because he believes that the Traveler choosing us made the wrong choice. IN destiny 2, Ghaul attempts to show the traveler the error of it’s ways”.

Furthermore this is also mentioned during the reveal,

“[Ghaul] feels like this is something that is owed to him because of everything he has been through”.

So Ghaul wants to be a Guardian, or at least empowered by the Light, the campaign mission is also revealed as the Red War Campaign. The Speaker is confirmed missing by Zavala as he says

“She will find the speaker”

This is in reference to Ikora Rey flying off in a fury of Voidwalker-ness during the Cabal attack.

The next point I want to talk about is about losing your light, which we sort of already knew, Luke Smith says this,

“[It] becomes a game about recovery, recover your powers, reclaim your connection to the Travel. Recover the Vanguard.”

Another developer goes on to say

“the protector itself, the traveler is put into a cage, and in an instant all guardians lose their light. Unexpected and irreversible,“ you can no longer go back to the tower, no longer walk, just stumble” “[you] have to go out and get your powers back”

So this device is placed over the Traveler and when it is activated we lose all of our powers and have to recover them. Spoilers… we recover our powers they even show it in the trailer, Zavala is speaking with a Guardian with a Ghost and says,

“If the Light can find its way back to you, then maybe there is hope for us all”- Zavala

So I think it very reasonable that the once this device is activated by the Cabal your first mission will be to regain your powers.

Let’s move onto the weapons. You may have noticed the different weapon slots, there are now Kinetic weapons, energy weapons and power weapons. Luke Smith says,

“Power weapons are things like fusion rifles, sniper rifles and grenade launchers. In that energy slot, in that kinetic slot you can have the same weapons.”

I think what this means is you could have a hand canon with kinetic damage in your kinetic slot and you could have a handcanon with element damage in your energy slot. And yes, we saw grenade launchers during the reveal and what also looks to be Dubious Volley. You may have also noticed that weapons also have a weapon modification slot, not too sure if that is aesthetics only or impacts how the weapon functions.

Moving along, three new supers were revealed, Dawnblade for the Warlock, which allows you to activate a flaming sword and rain down “firey phoenix projectiles” in the words of Bungie artist, the Sentinel, which is a void shield for the Titan, a.k.a captain America and lastly the Arcstrider, which is a electric staff for the Hunter. Personally, I was not a huge fan of these new sub classes, I felt like the Dawnblade looked very similar to Sunbreaker and the Arcstride looked very similar to Blade Dancer, however I have not played Destiny 2 yet and it will completely depend upon on how this new classes will function.

It also appears like 3 of the old classes will remain, Novabomb for the Warlocks, Striker for the Titans and Golden Gun for the Hunters. We saw snippets of each super or class being used during the gameplay reveal. I obviously would have preferred to have all completely new classes, however it makes sense that we would not just get rid of all of our training from vanilla Destiny.

What they have added though, is what appears to be an additional Class ability. The Warlock was seen to have a third ability that was activated on different occasions, on the first occasion the Warlock appeared to drop a pool of light which gave a buff called Healing Rift and another occasion a buff called empowering rift. The Titan was also seen using a third ability to create make shift barriers for team mates to take cover behind. According to the control scheme map for PC provided by bungie, V activates your “class ability”, so I assume these are class abilities not Subclass abilities and you can modify these abilities, as both the Titan and Warlock seem to have different options or versions.

Next I wanted to talk about what enemies are included in Destiny 2 apart from the Cabal. Well, the Vex had a main presence during the D2 gameplay reveal as a new Vex strike was confirmed called Inverted Spire. The Fallen and the Hive were never mentioned however they made very brief appearances in the Gameplay, so it seems that the Fallen and the Hive will be returning in D2. The Fallen seen in the reveal were wearing purple coloured house banners which we have not seen before.

Next I want to speak about something that I am the most excited for, the changes made to planet exploration. Firstly it was said,

““You can launch all the new activities in the world without going to orbit”

You no longer need to go to orbit to launch activities but they also confirmed that you do not need to go to orbit to travel to other planets, just open your menu and click on another planet. Thank you bungie. Not only that but they spoke about the map system which seems more detailed and allows you to meet up with other guardians easier, for example they said you can see when and where public events will occur. They also confirmed the activities available when you are exploring new planets, they are

“Still patrols, ambient encounters, materials and chests for you to find, public events that have heroic objective, treasure maps, lost sectors”

“You are going to meet new characters in the world, they have their own story to tell, they are going to send you on those side missions, adventures, the adventures are filled with new mechanics new encounters take you to new places”

“Same characters are going to make your map with mysterious locations to discover, these are called lost sectors, when you descend into these dungeons you are going to find a cache and boss who holds the key”.

This is exactly what I wanted for Destiny 2, open areas, what appears like quest givers that you can find in the world whilst exploring, and I believe we see this during the reveal with this character who may be holding No Land Beyond. They also describe the addition of Dungeons within the open world. This is exactly what I wanted.

They confirmed that Destiny 2 will take place on 4 planets Earth, Titan, IO and Nessus. Earth will primarily involve the European Dead Zone which is said to be the largest space they have ever built and predicted to be twice as large as any previous space. A new camp for humanity is in this area, social spaces were revealed and you could see the maximum number of players in a social space was 26.

Titan is a moon of Saturn and confirmed as the location where Zavala goes to heal his wounds. Cayde is on Nessus, which is dominated by the Vex who have converted it to a machine world.

IO is a sulfuric moon of Jupiter and it the last place that the Traveler touched before the Collapse. IO was also more recently introduced in the new age of triumph grimoire card for Cayde-6. This location is described as a very sacred place to Guardians and warlocks specifically.

Next I want to speak about the Crucible. PvP will now be 4 vs 4 in every mode. They described the changes as designing a true PvP experience. However interestingly they also said this,

“New HUD it has got information about your opponent’s like whether they have their super ready, whether they picked up power ammo.” To make an experience that is easy to get into and hard to master”

Even someone like myself who does not really play PvP finds it a bit odd that you would telegraph when your super is ready to the enemy. Anyway, they obviously confirmed new maps and new modes, one new mode was spoken about called “Countdown”, which is described as the first ever attack and defend mode in Destiny.

Let’s move onto the new Clan system. The Clan system is now integrated into the game, so you do not need to leave the game to join a clan or use tools outside of the game to organise your clan. They said this,

And they also confirmed that Clans will have a shared loot system, they said,

“We are adding a reward system that is shared by every member of your clan”

The other really exciting thing they spoke about with clans, is matchmaking options. They are introducing what is called Guided Games, where Clans can host solo Guardians in end game content such as tirals, the nightfall and raids. So if you are in a clan and you are raiding, and one of your team members drops out, you can essential indicate that you require one solo player to join your fireteam and the solo players actually get to choose which clan they join. So essentially, there is an element of matchmaking now for end game content.

Last couple of points, they only very briefly spoke of the Beta saying it would be released late summer. They acknowledge Playstation as their major partner, so I assume plastation exclusives will continue (which I think we already knew). And lastly they confirmed for PC players that

“Destiny 2 will be available on PC exclusively through Battlenet, Blizzards online gaming service”

That are all of the major points that I could spot during the reveal, there are more things to talk about and of course plently of Lore but for the moment what is your highlight and lowlight of the reveal stream? At this stage I am most disappointed with the supers but I hope I am wrong, and I am most excited about the open world nature of Destiny 2 with the activities you can do within these environment.